A team of cyclists from Bradford Cathedral have set off on a regional journey promoting wellbeing benefits of taking to two wheels.

The cyclists are riding part of the new Cathedrals Cycle Route linking all the UK’s 42 Anglican cathedrals. Twenty cyclists are riding between Bradford and Wakefield Cathedral today – World Bicycle Day – passing on a baton to the next group of riders, in a relay event launching the new route. Joining a national network of cyclists from all cathedrals to promote green travel and mental and physical wellbeing, the Bradford team will carry the baton etched with the words ‘Some days you need a hand….other days you are called to lend a hand’.

Bradford Cathedral has teamed up with the University of Bradford Union of Students and Bradford’s Capital of Cycling for the 20-mile journey to Wakefield cathedral, which takes in the Spen Valley Greenway and Dewsbury Minster.

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Cathedral Chorister Luke swaps singing for cycling as he leads the way with his dad David, on the Bradford leg of the Cathedrals Cycle Route relay.https://t.co/JSfT0Ng6gC#CCR #DiscoverCathedrals #CathedralsCycleRoute @churchofengland @engcathedrals @LeedsCofE pic.twitter.com/SY1Al3KRNf

— Bradford Cathedral (@Bfdcathedral) June 8, 2021

The practice of science, for me, is a kind of communion. I realized this one morning in Marquand Chapel, when I joined the Eucharist after a shift in the lab. The whole community held hands and sang and passed around bread and wine.

Wine is 85 percent water. These same drops of H and O have existed since the start of creation, cycling through clouds and oceans and streams and bodies. Bread is made from biomolecules, complex chains of carbohydrates—Cm(H2O)n—and nutrients like calcium, phosphorous, and iron. These molecules are hewn from the earth, cycled from rock to sand to soil to biomass. When you eat, these minerals assimilate into your bones and blood, constantly rebuilding and restructuring your inner architecture. Each bite of bread becomes an affirmation of union. Through the ritual of breaking bread, we teach our bodies that we belong.

Franciscan scholar Cynthia Bour­geault writes, “To see God in others means to realize that the whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity. . . . We are simply two cells of the one great Life.” It’s one thing to recite “We are all living parts of one body” in the rhythm of eucharistic prayer. It’s another thing to taste and touch this union, through the crumbs in your mouth and the held hands of others, while also glimpsing the entire chain of matter and energy and evolution that led to this moment and the cascade of bonds and interactions that will continue on.

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Taylor said he had desired to keep his abuse private but felt compelled to make a public statement after some critics on social media suggested he had been involved in a cover-up.

“My heart goes out to all those abused by Smyth in this country and in Africa,” he said.

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Churchwardens at St Helen’s Bishopsgate have published letter to the congregation detailing the action they have taken in response to the 31:8 review of Fletcher abuse – including an independent legal investigation into the knowledge of William Taylor https://t.co/7JDnqa9NTn

— John Stevens (@_JohnStevens) June 6, 2021

Trust God’s Spirit. Allen accuses western missionaries of failure to trust the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying and maturing new believers in China or Africa. He reminds his readers that the same Holy Spirit indwells these new national Christians and us. If God is at work in them, then we must assume that they, too, have all the necessary gifts for the leadership and life of the church. There is no need for us to remain in charge of everything. Allen notes that the apostle Paul did not stay unduly long in any one place, but quickly trained and taught new believers, appointed leaders and moved on. He trusted the Holy Spirit to use them and lead them, so that the church flourished and grew. Allen contrasts this apostolic pattern with contemporary systems in which many missionaries remain for many years in one place, dominate the national church and thus prevent natural development under the Spirit of god. Allen seems to be a prophet before his time, for in more recent years the charismatic renewal has taught us that all Christians have gifts for the edification of the church and, therefore, we do not need to be mere pew-dusters saying ‘amen’ to a dominant minister.

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Steven Richard Rutt writes about Roland Allen's life and theology on his two books Roland Allen A Missionary life and Roland Allen A Theology of Mission #rolandallen #stevenrutt #books #lutterworthpress #lutterworthbooks #amissionarylife #atheologyofmission pic.twitter.com/H4EoIPVuph

— Lutterworth Press (@LuttPress) January 5, 2020

In little more than ten years St. Paul established the Church in four provinces of the Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia. Before AD 47 there were no churches in these provinces; in AD 57 St. Paul could speak as if his work there was done, and could plan extensive tours into the far west without anxiety lest the churches which he had founded might perish in his absence for want of his guidance and support.

The work of the Apostle during these ten years can therefore be treated as a unity. Whatever assistance he may have received from the preaching of others, it is unquestioned that the establishment of the churches in these provinces was really his work. In the pages of the New Testament he, and he alone, stands forth as their founder. And the work which he did was really a completed work. So far as the foundation of the churches is concerned, it is perfectly clear that the writer of the Acts intends to represent St. Paul’s work as complete. The churches were really established. Whatever disasters fell upon them in later years, whatever failure there was, whatever ruin, that failure was not due to any insufficiency or lack of care and completeness in the Apostle’s teaching or organization. When he left them he left them because his work was fully accomplished.

This is truly an astonishing fact. That churches should be founded so rapidly, so securely, seems to us today, accustomed to the difficulties, the uncertainties, the failures, the disastrous relapses of our own missionary work, almost incredible. Many missionaries in later days have received a larger number of converts than St. Paul; many have preached over a wider area than he; but none have so established churches. We have long forgotten that such things could be. We have long accustomed ourselves to accept it as an axiom of missionary work that converts in a new country must be submitted to a very long probation and training, extending over generations before they can be expected to be able to stand alone. Today if a man ventures to suggest that there may be something in the methods by which St. Paul attained such wonderful results worthy of our careful attention, and perhaps of our imitation, he is in danger of being accused of revolutionary tendencies.

–Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours; A Study of The Church In The Four Provinces, Chapter One

“A man does not need to know much to lay hold on Christ. St. Paul began with simplicity and brevity.”
-Roland Allen pic.twitter.com/sKNHXmPYQq

— Philip Nation (@philipnation) September 5, 2018

Almighty God, by whose Spirit the Scriptures were opened to thy servant Roland Allen, so that he might lead many to know, live and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ: Give us grace to follow his example, that the variety of those to whom we reach out in love may receive thy saving Word and witness in their own languages and cultures to thy glorious Name; through Jesus Christ, thy Word made flesh, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Prepare for our 2019 theme of Missional Ecclesiology by reading the works of renowned missiologist Roland Allen. https://t.co/ooybDZd4VF pic.twitter.com/YNHu2CgwBm

— The Telos Collective (@TelosCollective) July 31, 2018

O God, the God of all goodness and of all grace, who art worthy of a greater love than we can either give or understand: Fill our hearts, we beseech thee, with such love toward thee that nothing may seem too hard for us to do or to suffer, in obedience to thy will; and grant that thus loving thee, we may become daily more like unto thee, and finally obtain the crown of life which thou hast promised to those that love thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Quite a hazy but very golden sunrise in Glastonbury today. #glastonburytor pic.twitter.com/kGkx1tiaMW

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) June 8, 2021

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchae′us; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchae′us, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it they all murmured, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchae′us stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.”

–Luke 19:1-10

Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus. -Luke 19:4

“The Conversion of Zacchaeus” by Bernardo Strozzi (1581) #zaccheus #jesus #strozzi #painting #art #sycamore #catholictwitter #taxes #luke19 pic.twitter.com/MFTTBNCbJ7

— Lady of Good Counsel (@ofgoodcounsel) November 19, 2019